The Cecil: A Haunted Hotel With a Dark Past

This is a guest contribution from Sally Writes.

Spending a night or two at a hotel is pretty commonplace for anyone spending a night away from home. With an estimated 54,200 hotels in the United States, you’re bound to be within distance of a few at any given time.

However, staying at a hotel isn’t always the most luxurious and elegant experience – especially when you’re staying at one of the most haunted places in Los Angeles, California.

The Cecil Hotel

The Cecil hotel is perhaps one of the most haunted hotels in the entire United States, and one of the most famous as well. With an abundant and dark history of violence, suicide, and mystery, it’s since become a massive hotspot for paranormal activity over the years – and there’s no denying that there are many spirits who call the hotel home.

With 19 floors and 600 rooms, the Cecil hotel was originally built in the 1920s. It was meant to be a luxury hotel for travelers. However, over the years, the hotel experienced many horrifying events, the first being a suicide in 1931.

As time passed, the Cecil became notorious for the vast amount of people who ended their lives there, so much so that it became well known as “The Suicide.” But the tragedy and horror don’t stop there.

A dark past

In addition to the suicides, the hotel was also known for cases related to murder.

One woman, Elizabeth Short (a.k.a the Black Dahlia) was said to be seen at the Cecil hotel shortly before being discovered murdered a few days later.

Another woman, known as “Pigeon Goldie” Osgood, was found in her room brutally murdered in 1964 by a hotel worker.

Both the Black Dahlia case and the Osgood case were never solved, further adding to the horrifying and mysterious history of the hotel.

However, one of the most recent cases took the media by storm in 2013, with the mysterious disappearance and death of Elisa Lam.

The unsolved mystery of Elisa Lam

In 2013, Elisa Lam, a 21-year-old student from Canada, traveled to the United States and checked into the Cecil hotel –but she never checked out.

The day she was meant to leave, Elisa was discovered missing. Her body was found days later in one of the hotel’s water tanks on the roof after several guests complained to staff about tap water pressure issues.

Among the tragic news of Elisa’s mysterious death, something more perplexing arose: elevator security camera footage that shows Elisa acting in a strange and unsettling manner.

The video has caused a lot of speculation and raised a lot of questions about the case. Many people believe that the paranormal was involved. In the video, Elisa is seen entering and exiting the elevator, looking around, and making strange gestures in the hallway –almost as if there was someone else there.

While nobody else is seen in the security footage, it’s quite unsettling and eerie to watch. At one point, Elisa can even be seen leaning up against the wall, almost as though she was hiding from someone. Many believe that she was interacting with one of many hotel ghosts in the hallway, or perhaps hiding from her killer.

Haunted happenings

If you ever find yourself spending the night away from your home at the Cecil hotel, you might wonder what to expect.

Aside from an unsettling and almost Halloween-like hotel vibe, you might experience several haunted happenings, such as apparitions, or strange and unexplained noises –you may even experience phantom like touches. Guests have also reported cold spots, which is often a sign that the paranormal is present.

Stay on Main

Newer owners are attempting to mask the horrifying history of the Cecil hotel through renovations. They even rebranded it as “Stay on Main” in 2011.

However, it might be a bit harder to get rid of the many spirits and paranormal activity that regularly takes place there. Not to mention that the hotel is well known – especially since the 2015 season of the popular TV show American Horror Story was influenced by the hotel’s dark past.

While the Cecil hotel holds a dark, violent, and mysterious past, it’s also one of the most notoriously haunted hotels in the country. If you find yourself booking a room anytime soon, be prepared to encounter paranormal activity.